Ok so I am continuing with Linux on my MSI Wind

I un- installed Ubuntu 8.4 as one of the updates screwed up the Wifi and as I’m only playing with this machine I installed the latest version of mandrake 2009,

The wifi straight out of the box but after a couple of days, I got rid of it as I just don’t like it, I also tried Suse 11, but the live CD doesn’t know how to cope with a 10″ screen and the install gave me an error message, so dustbin for Suse

So I installed the beta of Intripid Ibix 8.10

I have to admit installing this version is even easier than the others, with live CD its just so easy including the partition of the HD, (this is the most dangerous part, when installing Linux), the number of people in forums and on IRC concerning “I’ve lost my Window partition” is quite disconcerting and when losing the Windows partition I can understand when people never touch Linux again, I have been there and done that but I don’t give up easily;

So install finished, it took about 10 / 20 mins and then there were loads of updates, normal its still in the beta stage

these updates are as easy as Windows, just click on the update icon and it does it all automatically

Wifi still wasn’t working but found a link on a forum that worked first time and was fairly easy, http://julienpecqueur.com/tutoriaux/install_driverwifi.html still needed to use terminal, I don’t mind using terminal but to be honest if Linux wants windows users to come over to Linux this has to stop, as most people don’t use the terminal in Windows, Linux needs to be GUi 100% as in Windows, note the wifi problem is specific to the MSi Wind most machines will work out of the box

So after a couple of days so far so good, a couple of programs have crashed, but again in a beta software this is normal and what I like about Linux is even if the program crashes all still works just fine, in windows I would have been obliged to re boot

So so far so good, I will never be able to transfer my main machines to Linux as at work I run, Delphi, Borland and windows SQL at work and at home my machine is just for games, (though more and more games seem to be running on Linux)

Linux seem to be getting as good (or probably better) and nearly as easy as Windows and that is really nice, just installing or updating programs that are not in Synaptics is a real pain and will stop people

Recent things that are better, sharing a folder so that other can read and right to it, before was a pain now just click and confirm

For the person who wants to run Internet, e mail and ‘normal’ programs Linux is the way to go, its faster, cleaner, better and almost as easy and if all normal operations could be run by GUI interface then it would be the perfect OS

Update may 2009

just installed Ubuntu 9.04 on the Msi Wind, everything went just fine and for once even the WiFi is working, I had tried Mint Version RC 7 but the WiFi wasn’t recognised and even tried the latest version of Debian 5, but it kept giving me errors so I binned it.

Don’t use Linux mmuch as the Wind is only used when I’m in a train or away and the programs that I use most still don’t have Linux versions, shame …